Raphael Stevens

Katherine Ullman spent part of her sabbatical in Colombia.
Courtesy: Katherine Ullman

Katherine Ullman was burned out from working intensely during the Covid-19 pandemic and was questioning her next career move.
A two-month sabbatical from her job was just what she needed to reevaluate her life. In December, Ullman, who is 33 years old and lives in San Francisco, traveled to Mexico for a yoga retreat and also to Colombia, where she hiked and took an online drawing class.

“There were conversations about changing roles,” said Ullman said of her job. “I was trying to figure out, do I want to do that?
“Did I want to do that here?” she added. “Or, or should I be thinking differently?
“All those factors came together and that’s what led me to really feel like I needed space.”
More from Invest in You:Employees at this company fit work around their personal livesThis company lets you work remotely from anywhere in the worldDeepak Chopra: Here’s how to land the right job during the ‘Great Reshuffle’
Ullman’s consulting firm had a policy that paid her during her leave. Yet not everyone is as fortunate. Some may be allowed to take unpaid leave. Others may instead quit their jobs. In fact, that’s just what Ullman did shortly after she returned to work at the end of January.

“I hadn’t really made a decision about what I was planning to do,” she said. “Then I came back and it just was clear.”
Ullman is now on her second sabbatical, this one unpaid. Fortunately, she has money saved to pay her bills.
To be sure, sabbaticals are not a common employee benefit. Prior to the pandemic, only 5% of organizations offered a paid sabbatical program, while 11% offered it unpaid, according to the Society for Human Resource Management’s 2019 benefits report.
Yet there is something different between a one- or two-week vacation and multiple months off, said DJ DiDonna, who studies sabbaticals and is the founder of research and advocacy nonprofit The Sabbatical Project.

“Very rarely do you get a chance to step back and say, ‘What am I doing? How am I approaching life? What do I want my life to be like? Have I gotten off path?'” he said.
While experts hope that more employers will create sabbatical policies in response to the Great Resignation, the wave of pandemic-era job quitting that’s also known as the Great Reshuffle, there are ways to move forward without a specific policy in place.
Whether you want to ask your employer for an extended leave or simply walk away from work for a period of time, here’s what the experts say to do.

How to approach your employer

Katherine Ullman took an online drawing class while on sabbatical in Colombia.
Katherine Ullman

Before you go to your boss to ask about a sabbatical, do your research first. See what benefits may be offered by the company, even if it isn’t exactly identified as a sabbatical, said Vicki Salemi, career expert at jobs website Monster.
“There may be some areas of gray,” she said. “There may be some opportunity to explore.”
Even if you don’t see anything in your benefits that would appear to allow you the extended time off, still talk with your boss. That conversation should ideally be in person or over video or phone, but not via email or other messaging, Salemi said.
When you meet, know exactly what it is you are asking for — the number of weeks off and when you want it to start. Have an idea of how your work would be handled during your absence, Salemi advised.
Once you make the request, follow through. Check with human resources or whatever next step may have been decided during the meeting. Start an email chain, noting what was discussed and ask any follow up questions, she said.
If the answer is no, then consider your options.
“That is an opportunity to pause and look at the big picture and see if this company is really the right fit for you,” Salemi said.

Deciding to quit

Mohit Bhasin did a lot of kitesurfing during his sabbatical.
Courtesy: Mohit Bhasin

Quitting was the best option for 35-year-old Mohit Bhasin, even though his employer, Google, had an unpaid leave policy.
“It was an opportunity to figure the next thing out in some open space that’s created,” said Bhasin, who walked away in February 2020. “Thinking that I could always go back to Google, that was not the fall back that I wanted to rely on.”
Bhasin, who spent his time off in India with family and kiteboarding in beach destinations like Mexico, had saved enough money to sustain himself for at least a year without income. He also had no mortgage and could easily cut expenses when he moved away from the San Francisco Bay Area.
To be sure, you should be financially ready to step away from work, even if it is a shorter period of time in between jobs.
First, create a budget and review your cash reserves to see if you are able to go without income for a period of time, said Winnie Sun, co-founder and managing director of Irvine, California-based Sun Group Wealth Partners.
“I like to advise our clients to have a home equity line of credit set up on their home (if they have equity) before they leave their job/paycheck, have a game plan on how they will sustain themselves during the break (without tapping their retirement plan) and have enough income saved plus an emergency fund ready prior to leaving work, even if it is just temporary,” she said.

Also, make sure you have health coverage during your time away.
You may also consider taking on consulting or part-time work during your sabbatical. That’s what Bhasin did, taking on writing projects about five months into his time off.
“A good way to figure out what is the next thing you want to do is take your skills and help other people,” he said. “That might spark some ideas.”
Ten months after quitting his job, Bhasin returned to work as a data scientist for a tech startup. He moved back to California last summer but still travels to kiteboard, since his job is remote and he has flexibility with his hours.
“I learned what I like,” Bhasin said of his time off.
“Living in the Bay Area, I had no idea remote work could be like this,” he added. “I had no idea you could find such balance.”
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FanDuel CEO Amy Howe and Entain’s chief, Jette Nygaard-Andersen, are making the gambling industry rethink some key issues.
The two women are influential executives in a world that has been traditionally dominated by men.
They have urged the industry to reconsider how much money it spends to gain customers, while they have also acted as role models to women in the gaming world.

Amy Howe knows how to grab headlines.
Soon after she became CEO of fantasy sports and betting giant FanDuel Group, Howe made a splash by pointing out that the she was concerned about how the industry spends money to scoop up customers.

“If you look at the way we’ve been deploying our dollars in our customer acquisition costs relative to the value of the customer, we obsess about that,” Howe said, in an interview with CNBC after New York state launched mobile sports betting in January. “We want to make sure that we’re reaching the broadest and the right audience, but we’re doing that in a fiscally responsible way.”
Jette Nygaard-Andersen, CEO of the global gaming company Entain, is also outspoken about what she sees as unsustainable spending on advertising, marketing and promotions in the U.S. online gambling industry.
Nygaard-Andersen and Howe, women who snagged their gaming CEO jobs last year, are shaking up the evolving sportsbook and online gambling industry, which has been traditionally been dominated by men. Both see the importance of their roles in the bigger picture, from business and cultural perspectives.
“I don’t think about myself as a female CEO,” Nygaard-Andersen said, before shrugging and adding: “I show up because I’m a leader in the industry. I have ambitions to change the industry, both what we’re doing on the product side, but certainly also how we think about the industry from a diversity and inclusion perspective.”
She and Howe are also compelling the industry to think about how it spends money. The CEOs’ concerns about costs carry weight, and they elevated a nagging concern for investors: How much is too much to spend to acquire gaming customers?

Sports betting companies often offer generous promotions to customers, such as sign-up bonuses or risk-free first bets to try to secure customer business. But those promotions eat into profits. In some states, such as New York, companies pay taxes on those promotions as gaming revenue, rather than being able to deduct them as marketing expenses.
FanDuel’s biggest U.S. competitor, DraftKings, which is led by founder and CEO Jason Robins, is under pressure to plot its path to profitability. Analysts press Robins in earnings calls to explain customer acquisition costs and marketing budgets. Caesars CEO Tom Reeg launched the Caesars Sportsbook app in August 2021, with an attention-getting billion-dollar marketing budget. But then he immediately detailed plans for a return on that investment by 2023, a common target for profitability among sports gambling platforms in the U.S.

Nygaard-Andersen has pushed for different ways to pick up customers. She points to a strategy that capitalizes on the allure of the recreational aspects of gaming entertainment, including free-to-play games. In a recent interview with CNBC, Nygaard-Andersen said it’s paying off: Entain grew its global customer database by 25% last year, in addition to double-digit gains in 2020.
“That really puts us aligned with other companies that are high growth customer focused disruptors, like the Netflix and the Google, ” she said. “And just like them, we use our technology to constantly think about how can we could say, evolve our offering, how can we innovate on behalf of the customers.”
BetMGM, which is co-owned by Entain and MGM Resorts, has taken first place in market share for internet gaming and casino games and is competing for second place in sports betting in the states where it operates, according to MGM Resorts.

New opportunities

Entain just announced it will invest GBP100 million in an innovation lab dubbed Ennovate to encourage cutting-edge technology from all corners of the globe and partnering with nonprofits to apply those innovations for environmental or societal benefits.
Given the focus on the use of technology to entertain and even inspire customers, Nygaard-Andersen said it’s especially important that the tech itself is free from biases in the programming data sets and the artificial intelligence that powers the platforms. “It’s about the underserved groups. It’s certainly about women, and it’s about young girls.”
Nygaard-Andersen’s became excited when she talked about Entain’s investment in Girls Who Code, an organization dedicated to closing the gender gap in technology. “If we can get more girls excited about technology, then you start from an early age. And the minute that girls know that, they can be superstars,” she said.
Howe shares Nygaard-Andersen’s passion for expanding opportunities. She said she is enthusiastic about FanDuel’s parent company, Flutter, publicly setting an aggressive goal to have 40% of leadership roles in the company filled by women by 2026.

“Fifty percent of sports fans are women, right? But only 15, maybe 20% of the sports betting population,” Howe said. She said it is a priority to support female athletes, promote women’s sports and “target female customers in a really authentic way.”
Howe also makes it a daily practice to encourage, mentor and network with other women. At the recent MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, numerous women credited Howe with hiring them, or promoting them, or connecting them to high level jobs in sports. “I mean, she’s not my boss, like, I don’t report to her,” one FanDuel employee told CNBC. “But she’s THE BOSS and to me, she’s like a god.”
Howe said she is committed to a strategy of inclusion that she believes will help strengthen the company for years to come.
“I know that I’m in a position where I can give back, and it’s something that it drives me to be a better leader,” she said. “And I truly believe it’s going to make our our company, our industry, successful over time.”

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Audiences are likely to see a number of milestones set during Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony.
Apple TV+ and Netflix are vying to become the first streaming service to win Best Picture.
If Ariana DeBose takes home the best supporting actress award on Sunday, she will become the first queer woman of color to win an acting Oscar.
Kristen Stewart could be the first best actress winner at the Oscars who was not nominated for a BAFTA or a SAG award.

Ariana DeBose stars as Anita in Steven Spielberg’s new “West Side Story” movie.
20th Century Studios

LOS ANGELES – Hollywood’s biggest night is Sunday, and there could be plenty of history made.
With the diversity in this year’s crop of Oscar nominees, audiences are likely to see a number of milestones set. The academy often is criticized for a lack of diversity in its nominations. And while there are some clear front-runners for the 94th annual Academy Awards, there’s still room for underdogs to snag an upset in several categories.

There’s also plenty of controversy, too. This year, the show has come under fire for its decision to present some awards before the live broadcast begins and then edit those winners into the show later.
The eight awards that are set to be announced prior to the broadcast are for live action short, animated short, short documentary, editing, score, hair and makeup, sound and production design.
The trio of Regina Hall, Amy Schumer and Wanda Sykes will assume hosting duties during Sunday’s ceremony at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. For the last three years, the show has not had a host.
Heading into Sunday’s ceremony, Steven Spielberg has already become the first director to be nominated across six decades, earning nods for “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” in the ’70s, “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” in the ’80s, “Schindler’s List” and “Saving Private Ryan” in the ’90s, “Munich” in the ’00s, “Lincoln” in the ’10s and now “West Side Story.”
Kenneth Branagh also made history during last month’s nominations, having garnered seven nominations in seven different categories throughout his career. His film “Belfast” earned him a best director nomination as well as one for Best Original Screenplay and Best Picture.

Additionally, Lin-Manuel Miranda could become the 17th person to complete an “EGOT” sweep — winning Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards — if he picks up the trophy for Best Original Song. Miranda has already won two Emmys, three Grammys and three Tony awards.
Here’s a look at seven milestones that could be reached during Sunday’s ceremony:

First streaming service to win Best Picture

The front-runner for this year’s Best Picture is Netflix’s “Power of the Dog.” If the Jane Campion-directed film earns the top prize of the night, it will become the first film produced by a streaming service to win the Best Picture award.
Also in contention is Apple’s “CODA.”
In the last decade, streaming services have become more competitive at the Academy Awards, going beyond just securing nominations to earning winning top awards. Netflix’s “Roma” garnered three wins in 2019, taking home awards for cinematography, directing and best foreign film.

Benedict Cumberbatch stars in “The Power of the Dog” on Netflix.

Best Picture winner’s remake winning Best Picture

While many foresee “Power of the Dog” securing the Best Picture win, if Spielberg’s “West Side Story” takes home the prize, it will be the first remake of a previous Best Picture winner to win the award.
Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins’ 1961 adaptation of “West Side Story” earned the trophy 60 years prior.
Martin Scorsese’s “The Departed,” based on the Hong Kong thriller “Infernal Affairs,” and the 1959 “Ben-Hur,” following 1925’s silent epic, are the only remakes to ever win Best Picture.
Additionally, if “West Side Story” wins, it will be the first musical to win the top prize since 2003, when “Chicago” earned the Best Picture win.

First queer woman of color to win acting award

If Ariana DeBose takes home the best supporting actress award on Sunday, as many assume she will, she will become the first queer woman of color to win an acting Oscar.
She would also be the second Latina to win, following co-star Rita Moreno, who won for the same role in the 1961 version of “West Side Story.”
There have only been two other instances in Academy history where actors won Oscars for playing the same character. Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro both earned awards for portraying Don Vito Corleone, and Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix both won for their take on the Joker.

Overcoming BAFTA and SAG snubs

The lead actress race has been tight over the awards season. Jessica Chastain, who is nominated for her starring role in “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” is the only one of the five nominees to win more than one statuette at a televised ceremony. One was a Critics Choice award, and one was a SAG award.
Penelope Cruz, nominated for “Parallel Mothers,” is also a strong contender. However, if Kristen Stewart wins for her role as Princess Diana in “Spencer,” she will be the first best actress winner at the Oscars who was not nominated for a BAFTA or a SAG award.
Only two actors have done this, and in supporting roles: Marcia Gay Harden for 2001’s “Pollock” and Regina King for 2018’s “If Beale Street Could Talk.”

Kristen Stewart stars as Princess Diana in “Spencer.”

The oldest Oscar winner

If Dame Judi Dench snags the best supporting actress award, she will be the oldest Oscar winner ever. She was nominated for her role in Kenneth Branagh’s “Belfast.”
The current record holder is Anthony Hopkins, who won the 2021 best actor award for his role in “The Father.” He was 83. Dench is 87.

First deaf actor winner

The best supporting actor category is a tight race coming into Sunday’s ceremony. Ciaran Hinds (“Belfast”), Troy Kotsur (“CODA”) and Kodi Smit-McPhee (“Power of the Dog”) appear to be the three front-runners.
If Kotsur takes home the prize, he will be the first deaf actor to ever win an Academy Award and the second deaf person to take home the trophy in an acting category. His co-star, Marlee Matlin, won for “Children of a Lesser God” in 1987.
If Smit-McPhee wins, he will be the second-youngest actor to take home the prize. Timothy Hutton won the best supporting actor category in 1980 at the age of 18 for “Ordinary People.” Smit-McPhee is 25.

A trifecta for Jane Campion

Jane Campion is already the first women to be nominated in the directing category twice, but has a chance to be the first woman to win best picture, best director and best adapted screenplay.
She won the award for best original screenplay for “The Piano” in 1994 and could be the first woman to win in both screenplay categories if she takes home the trophy for best adapted screenplay on Sunday.

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Monday – Friday, 09:00 – 12:00 SIN/HK

Easing measures will mean mobility at recreational areas and workplaces, which could lift GDP by 3% to 4%, says Brian Tan, Barclays’ senior regional economist.
Resumption of international travel can also potentially fill 4% of GDP, he added.
However, domestic inflation pressures, tight labor market and rising global commodity prices will “set the stage” for the Monetary Authority of Singapore to implement aggressive policy tightening in April.

SINGAPORE — Singapore is set to reopen its international borders and ease Covid restrictions next week, and that’s going to be its “biggest economic driver for growth,” according to Brian Tan, senior regional economist at Barclays.
“By our estimates, if we get mobility at places like recreational areas and workplaces going up by just 10%, you’re going to get growth of about 3% to 4% of GDP. That’s a fairly big jump,” Tan said on CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” on Friday.

Starting March 29, people will be able to gather socially in groups of 10 instead of the current 5-person limit. More employees will be able to return to offices and capacity limits for large events will also be increased, Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced Thursday.
“We’re also expecting that the resumption of international travel … there’s a gap of about 4% of GDP that could potentially be filled,” Tan added.

A survey of 12,000 travelers by Expedia found that Singapore residents were the least likely to have traveled during the pandemic (59%) and the most likely to want to splurge (43%) on their next trip.
Roslan Rahman | AFP | Getty Images

However, with that growth comes domestic inflation pressures, along with an already tight labor market and rising global commodity prices.
“That’s going to set the stage for the Monetary Authority of Singapore to implement fairly aggressive policy tightening in April,” said the analyst referring to the country’s central bank.
Analysts from research firm Capital Economics and DBS Bank also said on Friday they are expecting MAS to tighten policy at its meeting next month following the listing of restrictions.

“We think that is going to be positive for the currency,” Tan said.

The Singapore dollar was trading at $1.356 Singapore dollars against the greenback. Singapore’s benchmark index, the Straits Times’ Index, was 0.5% higher on Friday, a day after the slew of announcements on easing measures.
All fully vaccinated travelers and non-fully vaccinated children aged 12 and below can also enter Singapore without having to apply for entry approvals starting April 1.
Tan added that the reopening of borders will pave the way for a “good macroeconomic outlook” in Singapore, by helping to attract more foreign direct investments.
“The fact that we are able to reopen ahead of some of the other economies in Asia also suggests that it cements some of the safe haven status that Singapore has.”

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Agreement will see BP purchase a 49% stake in an offshore wind project proposed for waters off Japan’s coast.
The Japanese government is targeting 10 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030.
In recent times, several firms have put together plans related to offshore wind in Japan.  

An offshore wind turbine photographed in waters off the coast of Japan on October 4, 2013.
Yoshikazu Tsuno | AFP | Getty Images

BP has agreed to establish a strategic partnership with Japanese conglomerate Marubeni that will focus on offshore wind development and potentially look at “other decarbonisation projects, including hydrogen.”
The agreement will see BP purchase a 49% stake in an offshore wind project proposed for waters off Japan’s coast. The energy major’s announcement, made Wednesday, did not contain details of the project’s size or when it may be built.

The agreement, it said, was “subject to merger control approvals.” In relation to the plans, BP is to set up a Tokyo-based “local offshore wind development team.”
The Japanese government is targeting 10 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030. By the year 2040, its goal is 30 to 45 GW. Under an “ambitious outlook,” Japan’s 6th Strategic Energy Plan envisages renewables accounting for 36% to 38% of its power generation mix in 2030.
The country also wants to be carbon neutral by 2050. According to the International Energy Agency, meeting this goal “will require Japan to substantially accelerate the deployment of low-carbon technologies by 2030, to address regulatory and institutional barriers and further enhance competition in its energy markets.”
“It will also be important to develop different decarbonisation scenarios and to prepare for the possibility that certain low-carbon technologies, such as nuclear, might not expand as quickly as hoped,” the IEA adds.

Read more about clean energy from CNBC Pro

In recent times, a number of firms have put together plans related to offshore wind in Japan.  

In August 2021, it was announced that RWE Renewables and Kansai Electric Power had signed an agreement that would see the two businesses “jointly study the feasibility of a large-scale floating offshore wind project” in waters off Japan’s coast.
In a statement issued at the time, RWE Renewables’ Sven Utermöhlen said his company saw “great potential for floating wind farms worldwide — but especially in countries with deeper coastal waters, like Japan.”
A few months earlier, in June, Japanese authorities said a consortium of six companies had been selected to develop a 16.8 megawatt floating offshore wind farm in waters off the coast of Goto City, Nagasaki Prefecture. There were no other bidders for the project.

More from CNBC Climate:

A major producer of oil and gas, BP says it’s aiming to become a net-zero company by the year 2050 or before. It’s one of many major firms to have made a net-zero pledge in recent years.
While such commitments draw attention, actually achieving them is a huge task with significant financial and logistical hurdles. The devil is in the detail and goals can often be light on the latter.
Last month, BP CEO Bernard Looney offered some insight into his firm’s strategy, labeling it as a “greening company” that was carbon-intensive today but planning for a net-zero future.
His comments — made during a panel discussion in Cairo, Egypt, moderated by CNBC’s Hadley Gamble — are likely to have raised eyebrows in some quarters at a time when a number of governments have declared a climate emergency.
Within the pivot to renewable energies, Looney said three criteria were needed to be satisfied: Energy needed to be cleaner, reliable and affordable. The problem was a complex one, he said. 
“What we need to get to is a world where a few things happen,” Looney said. “Number one, our objective is to reduce emissions, not to defend sometimes ideological positions about ‘hydrocarbons or not.'”
“Our objective is to reduce emissions, and if burning natural gas rather than burning coal reduces emissions then we should take that step.”
Expanding on his point, Looney said that given hydrocarbons were “such a massive part of the energy system today” it was very difficult to imagine how this would change overnight.
“If we want that energy to remain affordable because we want this loop where people desire the energy transition, we must invest in those hydrocarbons and drive the emissions down,” he said, before adding that his company was trying to do this. More

China-based electric-vehicle maker Nio reports fourth-quarter earnings and 2022 guidance after U.S. markets close Thursday.
Nio’s stock has fallen about 32% since the beginning of 2022.
While investors will be interested in the company’s fourth-quarter results, their primary focus will be on the company’s 2022 guidance amid rising inflation and ongoing supply-chain disruptions.

Nio plans to begin deliveries of its ET7 electric sedan in 2022.
Evelyn Cheng | CNBC

Nio’s sleek and powerful electric vehicles have captured the attention of investors — and rival automakers — around the world, but they haven’t always been able to power past the supply-chain disruptions that have played havoc with the Chinese company’s ambitious sales-growth plans.
Wall Street analysts on Thursday will likely ask Nio’s senior leadership some tough questions about how those supply-chain issues, and the recent rapid price increases affecting key commodities, such as nickel, are likely to play out in coming months. The automaker reports its fourth-quarter earnings after the U.S. markets close. An earnings webcast is scheduled to begin at 9 p.m. ET.

Though Nio was once among the meme-stock high flyers, its American depositary shares have had a rough time over the past several months as relations between the U.S. and China have cooled.

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Nio’s earnings report isn’t likely to hold a lot of surprises. The company delivered just over 25,000 vehicles in the quarter, near the high end of its guidance range of 23,500 to 25,500. Investors will be listening for updates on Nio’s efforts to expand its dealer network in China and to begin sales in several new European markets.
They will also be looking for details on Nio’s plans to expand the network of battery-swap stations that are the backbone of the company’s innovative sales model. Buyers can opt to purchase a Nio without a battery pack, at a substantial discount, if they subscribe to its battery-swap service.
Nio isn’t widely covered by U.S. banks, but four Wall Street analysts said in a Refinitiv survey they expect Nio to post a loss of 2.97 Chinese yuan ($0.47) per share, on average. Eight analysts said they expect Nio to report revenue of 8.682 billion yuan ($1.36 billion), on average.

Supply chains and outlook

Those analysts will likely have some questions around the fourth quarter’s costs and margins, but the real story will probably be in the company’s guidance for the current quarter and the full year.

Nio, like many other automakers, was forced to reduce production at times in 2021 due to supply-chain disruptions, including a global shortage of the types of semiconductor chips used in autos. In recent months Nio has been able to work around those supply-chain issues and maintain a production rate between 10,000 and 11,000 vehicles a month. Deliveries, however, dipped below that level in February, to just 6,131, because of factory downtime around China’s Lunar New Year celebrations.

Read more about electric vehicles from CNBC Pro

Deutsche Bank analyst Edison Yu watches Nio and its key domestic competitors closely. In a March 20 note, he brushed off supply-chain worries and said that he expects the company’s production output to rise significantly over the next several months.
“We see the [manufacturing] run-rate increasing to 15,000-20,000 per month by June,” Yu wrote. After that, he said, a new factory — expected to be up and running in the fall — will help the company ramp up its production output to 30,000 per month by sometime in the first half of 2023.
Assuming it plays out that way, that sales growth will get a boost from the three new models — two sedans and an SUV — Nio is expected to launch in 2022. Production of the larger of the two sedans, a tech-packed model called the ET7, began Thursday morning, Nio announced in a WeChat post.  
Yu said he thinks rising raw material costs will put pressure on Nio’s margins over at least the next few months, but he notes that the company has a plan to address that by using lower-cost lithium iron phosphate, or LFP, batteries in its standard-range models.
Yu remains bullish on Nio with a buy rating and a price target of $50.
Morgan Stanley analyst Tim Hsiao is also still bullish on Nio, but he cut his bank’s price target to $34 from $66 in a Tuesday note, reflecting the stock’s recent slide. Hsiao wrote that “elevating macro headwinds and severe supply challenges” will make the near term challenging for Nio but he feels that its “superior liquidity and revenue visibility” have it well-positioned to ride out any economic downturn.

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Grocery delivery start-up Gopuff has partnered with Morrisons in the U.K. to deliver goods from the retail giant in a matter of minutes.
The multi-year deal will see Gopuff sell Morrisons products through its app in more than 20 cities across the country.
It marks Gopuff’s first tie-up with a rival retailer in Europe. The company said it doesn’t have any similar arrangements in the U.S.

Gopuff and Morrisons are partnering up for speedy grocery deliveries in more than 20 cities across the U.K.

LONDON — American instant delivery start-up Gopuff said Friday it has partnered with British grocery chain Morrisons to deliver items to people’s doors in a matter of minutes.
The multi-year agreement will see Gopuff sell products from Morrisons through its app in more than 20 cities across the U.K. Morrisons will act as the wholesaler to Gopuff, which delivers essential goods from a network of small warehouses known as dark stores.

“This partnership will enable us to deliver a very strong range of Morrisons fresh food and customer favourites to front doors across the U.K. in a matter of minutes,” Morrisons Chief Executive David Potts said in a statement.
It marks Gopuff’s first tie-up with a rival retailer in Europe. The company said it doesn’t have any similar arrangements in the U.S.
The fast grocery craze has swept the U.S. and various parts of Europe, with several start-ups including Getir, Gorillas and Jokr now offering deliveries in as little as 10 minutes.
In September, British food delivery firm Deliveroo launched its own rapid grocery delivery service with Morrisons, called Hop. Hop is currently only available in London.
The rapid grocery delivery market is already seeing signs of consolidation. Gopuff only recently launched in the U.K. and France following its acquisition of speedy delivery start-ups Dija and Fancy. Istanbul-based Getir, meanwhile, acquired British rival Weezy.

Gopuff, which has raised $3.4 billion in funding to date from investors including SoftBank, said the deal would boost its continued expansion in the U.K.
“As we continue to expand Gopuff’s presence and product offering across the U.K., we’re proud to partner with one of the largest and most beloved brands in the market,” Gopuff CEO and co-founder Yakir Gola said.
Morrisons is currently undergoing a sale to U.S. private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier and Rice (CD&R) for $10 billion.
On Thursday, Britain’s competition watchdog said it’s concerned the merger could push up gasoline prices in the U.K., and threatened to open an in-depth probe into the deal if those concerns aren’t adequately addressed.
Gopuff is a two-time CNBC Disruptor 50 company that most recently ranked No. 36 on the 2021 list. The 10th annual Disruptor 50 list will be revealed this May. More